Betraying pensioners and axing the triple lock would be electoral suicide for Liz Truss, warn campaigners.
Yet yesterday the desperate Prime Minister seemed ready to break her pledge to push for the lock – where pensions rise by the highest of the rate of inflation, earnings or by 2.5%, each April.
And today Ms Truss, with her mini-budget in tatters and rated the least popular leader in 20 year in a poll, faces a crucial PMQs and rebellion from her own MPs.
Ex-Transport Minister Grant Shapps said Ms Truss could be replaced within days.
And former Education Secretary Michael Gove said “absolutely right” to a suggestion it was “no longer a question of whether Liz Truss goes, but when she goes”.
She is also under severe pressure from pensioners after a lack of assurances over the triple lock.
Her spokesman said: “The Prime Minister and the Chancellor are not making any commitments on individual policy areas at this point. The decisions will be made through the prism of what matters most to the most vulnerable.”
In September last year, the Government suspended the triple lock due to a surge in wages after the Covid pandemic.
Pensioners’ group Silver Voices want it reinstated and backdated to October 1.
Director Dennis Reed said: “Millions of senior citizens may be in the impossible situation of having energy support withdrawn next April but with no triple lock increase to help them through.”
He added: “If the Tories think they can make older people pay for their mishandling the economy, they will commit electoral suicide.”
A Tory MP said: “It is like she has a zero-voters strategy” – referring to the zero-Covid approach some nations pursued in the pandemic.
Stripping pensioners of promised cash is politically dangerous for the Tories.
YouGov research after the 2019 general election showed 57% of 60 to 69-year-old voters backed the Tories, rising to 67% in those aged 70 and over.
And a YouGov poll last night will make tough reading for Ms Truss.
It found 77% of voters disapprove of the Government, 83% think she is doing a bad job and 55% are demanding her resignation. Labour has a 17-point lead on who is best placed to handle the economy and 60% expect the Party to win the next election.
In an even more damning YouGov poll, Ms Truss’s approval rating is -70, the worst for a party leader in the past two decades.
On Monday the stunned PM watched in silence as her newly installed Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, shredded her three-week-old economic plan, which had unleashed market turmoil, hiked mortgage rates and led to sterling being hammered on foreign exchanges.
Today her plotting MPs will study her despatch box performance before deciding when they should topple her. Defence minister James Heappey said: “I don’t think there’s the opportunity to make any more mistakes.”
Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt ’s allies have been arguing behind the scenes that their candidate is best placed to take over if the PM steps down.
Ms Truss is technically protected from a confidence vote of her MPs until next September and party rules would have to be changed to oust her.
Ms Truss committed herself to the pension triple lock in August and on October 2. A decision on it will be announced on Halloween.
Labour peer Lord George Foulkes, who chairs Westminster’s cross-party group on ageing and older people, said: “If they do not honour their pledge on the triple lock they will never be forgiven.”
National Pensioners’ Convention general secretary Jan Shortt said: “We are already struggling with the cost of living crisis – it will be disastrous if the triple lock is not reinstated next spring.”
Age UK charity director Caroline Abrahams warned: “If she reneges on it now it will be a betrayal of our older population and hurt those on low and modest incomes the most.”
A former Tory health minister spoke against axing the lock. Maria Caulfield said: “I will not be voting to end the pensions triple lock.”
Cabinet Office Minister Brendan Clarke-Smith said: “The triple lock was a manifesto commitment.”
